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Fight clubs are located in the forgotten corners of most American cities. They’re shoehorned into storefronts, basements, or vacant warehouses, usually in the toughest part of town. Inside is a community of fighters, trainers, and hangers-on unknown even to the most ardent boxing fans. The gyms reek of sweat, pounding leather, pounding music, barking trainers, and determination. The gyms are fight factories, sweatshops -- but sweatshops with a mission. In some cases, the local gym is the safest place in the neighborhood. It’s a refuge, a sanctuary, where children and young adults - many of them drawn to the gym by chaos or violence in their own lives - learn to channel aggressive impulses in an environment that stresses discipline, hard work, and respect for authority. At some gyms, kids are required to show their report cards before they become members. Other gyms function as de facto day-care centers, with free meals, computers, homework rooms - anything to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. In communities often polarized by race and ethnicity, gyms are an island of tolerance. It’s a matter of principle as well as practicality. Race, class, even gender are virtually irrelevant in the ring. What matters most are the details of weight, reach, skill, and the indefinable quality that fight people call “heart.” These photographs are from my book, Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice and the Will to Survive in American Boxing Gyms.

– Jim Lommasson

American Fight Clubs: Champs Boxing gym – Philadelphia

“As these gyms disappear . . . the essays [in Shadow Boxers] . . . and photographs brought together in this documentary will provide a valuable portrait of this historic American institution.” -- The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University

American Fight Clubs: Costello Boxing Gym – Philadephia

“Both up to the minute and timeless, Lommasson’s pictures are also affecting, intricate and sometimes just glorious.” – Time Magazine

American Fight Clubs: Azteca Boxing Gym, L.A.

"What the jukebox was to Robert Frank, who traveled America in the 1950s photographing and codifying American culture and life, the heavy bag and spit bucket is to Lommasson, who photographed the effluvia and detritus of more than 100 gyms. Coast to coast and up to Canada, boxing gyms are places of peeling stucco, naked light bulbs and dirty mirrors, his images tell us. But they are also places of contradiction, where boxers tape their hands with the delicacy a ballerina uses to tape her feet, and where gum-ball machines coexist with broken noses." – Victoria Blake, The Oregonian

American Fight Clubs: Joey Eye Gym, Philadelphia

"It is those battles and those dreams that Shadow Boxers captures in a triumphal procession of words and pictures such as no Roman emperor ever dreamed of. This is a book truly for those with a reverence for the traditions of the sport. -- Bert Sugar

American Fight Clubs: Gleason's Gym – NYC

"A great many wonderful writers from W.C. Heinz on down have found worthy material in boxing, and the same can be said of lots of talented photographers. Shadow Boxers is a fine addition to the library of boxing-related works, and you don't have to enjoy or even condone the sport itself to appreciate the book." – Bill Littlefield, NPR

American Fight Clubs: Brewster Wheeler Gym – Detroit

"An insider's vivid, surprising look at a world most of us never get a chance to see—a world of battle-weary veterans and bright-eyed newcomers, of surrogate fathers and ancient skills and sanctuary from the mean streets just outside the door. Not to be missed." – Geoffrey C. Ward, author, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

American Fight Clubs: Wild Card Boxing Gym – L.A.

"In portraits and candid shots, of pros and amateurs and youngsters who can’t even reach the speed bag, Lommasson reveals not just the grit and toil of a disappearing world, but also an unexpected sense of community and even of sanctuary. While Shadow Boxers never blinks at the toughness, it does take the reader straight to the heart." –Sports Illustrated

American Fight Clubs: Randy & Ike's Boxing Gym – Paterson, NJ

"The photographs alone are worth the cost of admission. Jim Lommasson approaches his subject with the hard-hitting nostalgia of Annie Leibovitz, alongside whose photos of bluesmen, rockers, and gospel singers these fighter shots necessarily belong." – The Cyber Boxing Zone

American Fight Clubs: Front Street Gym – Philadephia

“As real and as honest and as raw as the paint peeling from the walls.” – Inara Verzemnieks, The Oregonian

To Purchase:

Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice & the Will to Survive in American Boxing Gyms Signed Hardcover: $15.00 including shipping. (I literally have a ton of these book).Contact: jim@lommassonpictures.com

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Hurricane Katrina devastated one of the most culturally rich and diverse cities in the world. New Orleans is the home of America's most authentic art form, jazz. A true melting pot of racial and ethnic identities and proud traditions, of spiritual beliefs and artistic expression. These photographs of structures and objects of faith were revealed when the flood waters settled. As I walked the vacant neighborhoods, finding objects in and out of context, rearranged after weeks of floating in a New Orleans stew, I simultaneously felt like an archeologist and perhaps a grave robber. There are those who attempted to attach some kind of religious meaning to this very tragic environmental and human disaster. It isn’t the irony that I find engaging, it’s what the artifacts say about those who once inhabited the now abandoned neighborhoods. Most were poor, they were believers, and they were washed away.

After the Flood: Lower Ninth Ward Near The Levee

"Oh crying won't help you, praying won't do no good, When the levee breaks, mama, you got to lose." - Memphis Minnie: "When The Levee Breaks"

After The Flood: Church Lower Ninth Ward Church

"I've got no time for talkin' I've got to keep on walkin' New Orleans is my home That's the reason why I'm goin' Yes, I'm walkin' to New Orleans I'm walkin' to New Orleans I'm walkin' to New Orleans I'm walkin' to New Orleans." – Fats Domino " Walking to New Orleans"

After The Flood: Korean Church

"But keep your heart out on your sleeve A little bit of stormy weather, thats no cause for us to leave Just stay here baby, in my arms Let it wash away the pain Feels like rain - John Hiatt: “It feels Like Rain”

After The Flood: The Last Supper

"Hey, now trees fell on the island And the houses give away Some they strained and drowned Some died in most every way And the sea began to rolling And the ships they could not stand And I heard a captain crying "God save a drowning man". – Traditional: Wasn't That A Mighty Storm"

After The Flood: Katrina Car Tapes

After The Flood: Choir Robes

After The Flood: Dashboard

"The sea began to rolling the ships they could not land I heard a captain crying Oh God save a drowning man The rain it was a falling and the thunder began to roll The lightning flashed like Hell-fire and the wind began to blow The trees fell on the island and the houses gave away Some they strived and drownded others died every way. " –Traditional: "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm"

After The Flood: Old Testement

"The saints are coming, the saints are coming I say no matter how I try, I realise there's no reply. The saints are coming, the saints are coming I say no matter how I try, I realise there's no reply. I say no matter how I try, I realise there's no reply. I say no matter how I try, I realise there's no reply." – Green Day

After The Flood: St. Roch's Cemetery

"We get along Lord, but not today Cause we gonna wash away We gonna wash away And I got troubles oh, but not today Cause they gonna wash away This old heart gonna take them away" – Joe Purdy: "Wash Away "

After The Flood: Doll

"The flood it took my mother it took my brother too I thought I heard my father cry as I watched my mother go Old death your hands are clammy when you've got them on my knee You come and took my mother won't you come back after me?" – Traditional: "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm"

After The Flood: Mississippi Tent Revival Cross

After The Flood: Unclue Lionel Batiste at Donna's Bar and Grill

"When I die Oh lord please bury me In my high top stetson hat Put gold coins over my eyelids So the boys wil know I died standing pat Get six crapshooting pallbearers Six chorus girls to sing me a song Put a jazz band behind my hearse wagon To raise hell as we roll along Get sixteen coal black horses, to pull that rubber tired hack There's thirteen men going men going to the graveyard Only twelve men are coming back Well, now you've heard my story, well, have another round of booze And if anyone should ever, ever ask you, I've got the St. James infirmary blues!"

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Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan is collaborative photo and oral history project about the trials of homecoming for veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Exit Wounds is a traveling exhibition and a book (Schiffer Publishing, May 2015).

As a society, we need to understand that a consequence of sending soldiers to war is that the war comes home with every veteran. Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan deals with the effects of the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by focusing – in photographs and interviews -- on returning American soldiers as they reintegrate into civilian life. It is an ongoing collaborative effort, documenting in images and words the personal experiences and stories of these veterans. In addition to their own experiences, they bring home first-hand knowledge of the impact of war on the civilians caught in the crossfire. The soldiers need to tell their stories, and we need to hear them. We must know the true consequences of their – of our -- actions. We must take responsibility for the aftermath of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as at home.

Fett Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"I wouldn't wish war on my worst enemy." – Marine John Fett to his mother.

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"Before we as a people send our youth into war, we have a responsibility and an obligation to fully understand the enormity of what it is we ask them to do. We are asking them to die. We are sending them into horrible situations in which they face horrible decisions and partake in horrible acts. To truly honor the warrior every patriotic American must bear witness to their stories and their pain." – Mary Geddry mother of twice deployed Marine John

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"What is a soldier when you wash the Hollywood away? What is a warrior when you dispel the mythology surrounding their nobility? Everyone needs to know the answer to that question. The voices of those who have relevant experiences must make their struggles known, for their own healing and for the dream of peace." – .Jan Critchfield

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

I don't Know. (A poem). "Katrina's 5. Mom's 25. Mom's going to war–soon, too soon, not soon enough. I don't know. We are watching, "We Were Soldiers." She says, "Mommy, that's war." "Oh, Sweety, don't worry, Momma's just driving trucks." January 15th, no sleep. Making love to him for the last time– maybe–could be–maybe not–I don't know. Kisses. So many kisses, tears, I love you's. I miss you right now! I'm not even gone and I miss you right now! Don't let go of me. I can't get close enough. Tighter. I turned off the alarm. Who needs it. It's January 16th, 4:00AM. I am in the shower with him. He brushes my hair. I put it up according to military regulation. Brown T-shirt, DCU bottoms, tuck in, chinch the belt, wool socks, tan boots. DCU top. IDENTIFICATION TAGS! For just in case. Maybe, could be–maybe not–I don' know. How does a mother say goodbye to her five-year-old child? What kind of goodbye is it? Is it the last goodbye? Maybe, could be, maybe not–I don't know. So kiss her while she sleeps, pat her strawberry blond hair, one last take-it-all-in glance. Turn around–don't look back–keep going and walk out the door. For the last time? Maybe–could be–maybe not–I don't know." – Mandy Martin about leaving for war.

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"What will haunt me for the rest of my life is when we took POW’s. I had so much hatred for them. I didn’t care if they lived or died. I will not go into details on what was done for fear of the law, but things still haunt me. I remember pulling guard on an insurgent that was about to be turned over to the local war lords. He was flex cuffed and shaking so bad, I gave him a smoke and started small talk. At one point I did a little hand gesture to tell him that he was about to get his head cut off, then I took the smoke from him and said something hateful. Things like that still bother me." "I did not like fighting in Iraq, I did not believe in why we where there. I went because I felt like I owed my friends that were killed over there. They had everything to live for; family, wife, kids. I had none of that, so why didn’t God take me?" – Arturo Franco

Exit Wounds: Soldiers'shawn Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"If armed dudes from a foreign country walked through the park blocks, we would be scared and offended, too. We know the realities of clearing house-to-house and taking people’s weapons away. We would never allow this in the US." – Shawn McKenzie. “I think [vets] need to tell what hell guys go through over there, I don't think they really understand how horrible it it is. You might just have to talk to somebody like Shawn and they might tell you what it's really like. It isn't published enough. It might scare us, but it might make people get mad and demand something be done.” – Shawn's grandmother Violet

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"Growing up, my dream was to be in the Army. All I ever wanted to do was to be in the Army and lead men into combat. I got 30 seconds of my dream, I'd give my other leg to live it again." – Lucas Wilson

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"So, I just had a conversation with the bank about my college loan. I explained my situation and my hardship being a disabled combat veteran and finding a job and paying back my loan. I asked them if there were any options of getting a deferment or forbearance. They explained to me that, they do not offer such privileges to anyone. They told me I have 16 days to make a payment or my account will be handed over to a collection agency. Then I asked them what would be a way to make sure that my parents don't end up stuck with my debt, they did not have an answer, so, I asked them what would happen if I blew my brains out. Only then they said that my loan would be forgiven. So, Veterans, thank you for your sacrifice and thanks for the bailouts that the bank has been receiving from our tax money. And the only way we can help you, is only if you blow your brains out!!!!!” “And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, AND I WONT FORGET THE MEN WHO DIED WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR ME AND I GLADLY STAND UP............" – Sergio Kochergin

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"Is it really supporting and defending our constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, to send military troops to over 100 countries across the globe, and to have military bases everywhere? Is that really what it's about? Are we just promoting our own economic interests so we can extract resources from the rest of the world? If people knew the reality of what our troops are doing, and if they had it happening to them, they would fucking flip out." - Ari LaVallee at Burning Man 2013

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"Being thanked for doing something for America feels very awkward. I never felt that I was doing anything for America. I was doing it for the people that I was there with. I will happily accept thanks for the job that I did for the soldiers. I want people to know most returning veterans don't always feel good about what they were involved in. Vets don't always feel good about what they've done. Not everyone wants to be regarded as a hero, or welcomed home as if there achieved something. Or that they should be thanked when they've experienced things that should not have happened. If we are going to commit ourselves to a conflict, we need to commit ourselves to the consequence. People need to share that burden, and listen to the vets." – Myla

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"I have five gold stars tattooed on my shoulder. That’s five fucking bothers of mine who were killed by these people. It’s been a pretty fucked up period in my life lately. My brigade is shipping out to Iraq again and it’s fucking tearing me up. It’s killing me, being stuck here and not going, knowing that my friends are going to face the hell of war and I won’t be there wit them. Sometimes being left behind is a fate worse than bearing the scars that war produces on the body and soul. I pray to God I don’t have to tattoo any more fucking stars." – Miah Washburn

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"When a warrior becomes broken or disabled it’s a very serious thing. It’s antithetical to be a warrior and to be broken; to be a warrior is to be tough, to be strong, and when you’re broken, service members and veterans feel lost. Alienated and alone I began to wonder if I would ever recover. In May of 2008, through an email from a Veterans Service Organization, I learned of a new type of program to pair service dogs with veterans. This was new to me; I didn’t know what a service dog was. I immediately researched that and I thought, “This is for me.” In November of ‘08 I was selected as one of the first veterans in the country to be paired with a service dog. My dog’s name is Tuesday. Tuesday has mitigated most of the my symptoms of traumatic brain injury, PTSD, a spinal condition, and has enabled me to re-ignite, re-awaken, and re-realize some of my personal goals, dreams, and hopes. I now walk into the world each day with a gentle, well-trained golden retriever named Tuesday, who wears his bright red, clearly marked service cape as he accompanies me when I ride the subway, enter an elevator, or dine at restaurants. My relationship with Tuesday transcends our exterior, our skin and our fur. Tuesday is so many things. He’s a part of me. He helps me physically… and he helps me spiritually." – Luis Carlos Montalvan

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

“My resistance was a conscious decision to cease participation in the continued maintenance and creation of empire through military intervention, and global abuses of economic tyranny.” – Benji Lewis

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

“People look at the Nazi concentration camps and wonder, how can you do something like that? It’s really easy. It’s a simple thing. You make one wrong decision and you spend the rest of your life explaining that decision. I’ve barely made any choices in my life, and then I ended up working in a concentration camp. You wake up every day, put your boots on and go to work at the concentration camp.” – Christopher Arendt former Guantanamo guard

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"It seems to me that the most interested population in war tend to be middle aged people who have not served. Many liberals seem to yearn for us (veterans) to return scarred emotionally so they can say I told you so. Many conservatives are too eager for blood baths in the name of their savior, they hope we return to stick up for the second amendment. Those liberals forget that the military is comprised of all walks and same with the conservatives, they put us in a box that turns my stomach. War tourists who follow the movement to justify preconceptions of something that can’t be defined." – Garrett Anderson

Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan

"I learned philosophy from the best minds of my parents’ generation. The people I studied under are not forming public policy; the makers of public policy went to a different set of schools. It is as if my country were dreaming in one room, and making decisions in another." – Lelyn Masters

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What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization

“The camera has two capacities,” remarked John Berger, “to subjectivise reality and objectify it.” These two capacities are rarely as evident as in the collection of images by artist Jim Lommasson, titled, What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization. The result is an alternative photography, one that functions as a metaphor for our social landscape. At Lommasson’s request, Iraqi refugees share an item that accompanied them during their immigration to America. He then makes a print of the item against a clean white background. The effect is startling. Parallels abound. The blank slate entirely absorbs, or perhaps, assimilates whatever trace of the memories and dreams that make this item a subject of displacement. It is this status that the process of What We Carried acknowledges and in a small way disrupts.

Over four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Iraqi refugees didn't leave their country to get a better job, or because of a natural disaster, or an act of God. They left because of an act of Man. They left because of a brutal dictator and industrial warfare that has virtually destroyed their country. The long journey from Iraq to the U.S. may take months, sometimes even years, and includes refugee camps, piles of documents and possibly a few bribes.

Lommasson then returns this austere print to the contributor, and invites them to contextualize, however they see fit. The participant’s marks render the sanitized glossy images powerful, vulnerable, and breathtakingly individual. A trace of the significance, of the memory, is cast across the signified–sometimes reading to the eye as an adornment, sometimes as a lost caption, or a last minute edit before going to print, while simultaneously representing conversations of our time around notions of surveillance and classification, of the defamation of art and the preservation of the human spirit.

As the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad was being looted of objects from the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia-- including the tablets with Hammurabi’s Code, the world’s first system of law–Iraqis were fleeing their homeland with a few common personal mementoes to collect their past and reconstruct their future.

This action of one white American man humbly returning this print, and this fragment of history, is a gesture of acknowledgement and an urgently needed means to make amends. What We Carried is an engrossing collection of photographs that speaks to displacement, resilience, liminality, xenophobia, rendition, human interdependence, freedom, memory, and to the purpose of photography itself.

Artist Jim Lommasson works to “incorporate photography into social and political memory (instead of using it as a substitute, which encourages an atrophy of any such memory.)”

What We Carried: Ali Ali

"I want to ask my country "Iraq" when we will get some rest. Shall we spend tears on our current circumstance or should we cry for the past. We have been carrying our miseries for long time on our chests. Strangers from around the world occupied our land and they kill our people for a very cheap price. We are tired, we are tired and we want to get some rest." – Ali Ali

What We Carried: Zahra Alkabi

"When I left my country Iraq in 2000, I left everything behind, my photos, my personal stuff, my memories because I just wanted to forget everything about my life but the only thing that I couldn't leave behind was my faith. This is our Holy book "Qura'an." I wanted to have with me all the time so I can get protection and guidance to my family during this uncertain Journey." – Zahra Alkabi

What We Carried: Othman Al Ani

"I brought this domino set with me from Baghdad because it reminds me of the great times I spent with my friends. I chose this from all the other stuff because I know those old times may not come back again. When I went to see my friends for the last time before leaving my country, they gave this domino set to me to keep and to remind me of the great times we spent together." – Othman Al Ani

What We Carrie: Dr. Baher Butti

What We Carried: Susan Barwary

"My father bought this set of coffee cups when he was a young adult, before he was married… in 1945. He was insistent that it would be a big family. This was a set of 12 cups, but after this long time, only 5 cups are left… This set has also travelled multiple times, from Baghdad to Dohuk, to Syria, to Chicago… I have wrapped every piece of this set with fabric and with care as if it was a piece of gold… It is worth a lot to me… These coffee cups remind me of my precious father who taught me so much, and who I will always remember with love and gratitude… How many times have we happily drunk bitter coffee from these cups in our house… until the decorations disappeared from its surface… I couldn’t leave these cups in Baghdad despite having left so many valuable things… I left my friends and those that I have loved, and they were many…I left the job that I loved… I left my home and my memories… and my roots…" – Susan Barwary

What We Carried: Schmeiran

"The morning Dawns, the Sun is up. Children playing. Mothers cooking. My little notebook holds my memory of my friends remembering me when they start writing. Oh! this is my life that is no longer alive. One night just changed it all. That night was dark. Everyone was running. People were crying. That one bomb, it destroyed my land. A mother cries where is my son? He went with the sun, gone like yesterday. The sand was thirsty. It drank his blood. He went to asleep. He never woke up. We wanted to live. But were kicked out. Leaving with our memories that made my history. That one night that changed my life is forever alive inside my mind. Past and future will always collide. Everytime I raise my eyes and look up to the skies." – Schmeiran

What We Carried: Youlena Zaia

"Spring of 1976 with my college classmates during the college’s trip to the ancient city of Nimrud 20 miles south of the city of Mosul. These monuments go back to the civilization of the Assyrian empire between 1650 BC and 610 BC. The monuments of this historical city have been destroyed by ISIS, because in their perspective, this city does not have an Islamic nature". – Youlena Zaia

What We Carried: Haifa

What We Carried: Dhuwiya Al Obaidi

"When I set off from Iraq, I remember many dear things, but I could not leave my mother’s glasses. She passed away in 1986. So it would stay a dear memory in my heart." – Dhuwiya Al Obaidi

What We Carried: Dr. Baher Butti

"In 2003 someone told me that Paul Bremer sent a message to George Bush saying"we are not in the Gulf... we are in Mesopotamia." Well, first it's unfortunate that Bremer relies on Hollywood to believe that Gulf is still using camels for transportation and expects to see flying carpets in Baghdad! Second, it's a pitty that I was not given the chance to show him before going to Baghdad this photo of teachers in school annual party in Baghdad... in the 60's...I could have told him that Iraqis are modern, and we are civilized enough to build our own Democracy.... Maybe, and just maybe, he could have limited his job to ousting Saddam and not oust the craddle of civilizations itself!! Thank you Jim Lommason.. late is better then never!" Dr. Baher Butti

What We Carried: Ulla

"We all have had a childhood....But it differs for everyone..." – Ulla

To Purchase:

What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of CivilizationBlue Sky Books $26.00MagCloud: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1031494

Books

Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice & the Will to Survive in American Boxing Gyms Signed Hardcover: $15.00 including shipping.Contact: jim@lommassonpictures.com

Lommasson Pictures Web Site:

About Me

Jim Lommasson is a freelance photographer and author living in Portland, OR. Lommasson received the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize from The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for his first book, Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice and The Will To Survive In American Boxing Gyms. Lommasson's book Exit Wounds: Soldiers’ Stories – Life After Iraq and Afghanistan and traveling exhibition is about American Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and their lives after their return from war. Exit Wounds includes Lommasson’s photographs, interviews and photographs by the participants. He is an Oregon Humanities Conversation Project Grant recipient for his public discussion "Life after War." Lommasson was awarded a Regional Arts and Culture Council Grant for What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization. What We Carried is an ongoing collaborative storytelling project with displaced Iraqi and Syrian refugees. What We Carried will be exhibited at The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, 5/28/19–9/3/2019. Stories of Survival: Object. Image. Memory. about Holocaust and genocide survivors is on view at The Illinois Holocaust Museum 7/19/18–1/13/2019.